KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and the Government are spending a total of RM15.6bil to ensure that the country will have a top-notch, competitive high-speed broadband infrastructure in the next decade.

The benefits of having such a facility for the people and the nation are expected to be worth many times that amount.

High-speed access to the Internet will provide a boost to telehealth facilities, Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said yesterday.

Patients anywhere in the country, and especially in rural areas, will be able to get specialist attention via medical systems connected to the Internet.

In the same way, children could also be educated via Internet-enabled systems that would allow teachers and students to interact despite being hundreds of kilometres apart.

Malaysians would also benefit from better access to e-government services, such as being able to pay utility bills, renew licences, file tax returns, and even lodge police reports online more efficiently.

Farmers and fishermen will have instantaneous information, such as current market prices and demands.

"They will be able to check the market price of their produce directly and no longer need depend on middlemen," Shaziman said.

Having high-speed broadband would also create 135,000 jobs because it would help spur local digital-content creation and attract foreign direct investments.

"Foreign investors now always scrutinise a country's broadband speed when they decide on whether or not they want to do business with the nation," said Shaziman.

Broadband speed in South Korea is now 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps) and it is the same for Hong Kong, with Singapore expected to reach that target by 2015.

Malaysia's broadband speed ranges between 1Mbps and 4Mbps, in comparison.

The high-speed broadband initiative will be rolled out in two phases.

Phase 1 is the building of the infrastructure and rolling out of broadband services to 50% of households by 2010.

TM expects to start work on the high-speed broadband infrastructure by December.

The task will include upgrading copper phone lines to fibre-optic cables.